Yowler Foul-Up (12 page)

“Quiet! You’ll get your turn, whoever you are.”

“I’m just saying—”

“Well, don’t. Let him finish. Go on, Spires.”

The secretary passed a set of parchments to the viscount. “I think you should take a look at these profiles, Excellency.”

Curfew studied the scrolls, his cheek twitching as his eyes progressed down each page.

“Moors, Edwy, the Lark? Who
are
these people?”

“A breakaway section of the Yowlers, Excellency.”

“How breakaway, exactly? Breakaway as in still tied to, or breakaway as in totally broken? I don’t want to end up murdered in my bed—”

“They’re total outcasts, Excellency; I assure you. They deserted the main order last year to start up on their own. The ruling brotherhood say they won’t have anything to do with them because they’re all mad.”

Curfew swallowed a few times and wiped his brow with the back of his hand.

Spires slowly took back the parchments and continued. “Moors, Edwy, and Lopsalm are all ex-priests from the order. We think the fourth member, the one known as the Lark, might be our girl Lauris.”

Curfew snatched the parchments back and rifled through them. “Hmm … these aren’t very good. Apart from the fact that this
Moors
is supposed to be grossly obese, we don’t have an awful lot to go on; most of these pictures are drawn in crayon.”

“Yes, Excellency—our artist
was
working from a few vague descriptions. But wait! There’s more. The Yowlers say that one of their grand churches was recently sold to this Lopsalm character for a sum referred to as considerable.”

“Let me guess: Karuim’s?”

“Precisely, Excellency. Used to be the temple of origins, didn’t it?”

Curfew perked up. “But that’s next door, for goodness’ sake! We can storm it.”

“Unfortunately not, Excellency. The church is on Yowler land, and even though they’re opposed to the new order, we’ll incur their considerable wrath if we thunder right in there with no religious jurisdiction.”

“Absolutely, absolutely. We don’t want that kind of trouble. … You’ll have to think of something else. Where does this fellow come in?”

The loftwing stepped forward and gave a reluctant bow.

“This is Mr. Obegarde, Excellency, the investigator we hired to track Lauris.”

Curfew nodded. “Ah yes, last I heard you were chasing after a gnome who worked as a cleaner at the church?”

“Oh, he’s a cleaner all right,” Obegarde conceded. “He’s also an assassin, a thief, a conspirator, and only the gods know what else.”

“Definitely a member of the group, then?”

“Oh yes.”

“Did you catch him?”

“I did, and I took him to the city jail.”

“He’s there now?”

“I doubt it.”

“Oh?”

“He got away from me in the jailhouse. Sorrow’s men might catch him, but I wouldn’t build your hopes up. …”

The viscount caressed his eyelids with a thumb and a forefinger.

“I see,” he said sadly. “And do we have any idea, absolutely
any
idea, what all this is about?”

“Not really,” Obegarde admitted. “All I’ve got is a few fractured facts from eavesdropping and a very dodgy confession from our little friend. What I
do
know is this: there’s a machine in a warehouse down at the harbor; it’s big, it’s mean, and it’s definitely a vital part of whatever this group has planned. If we can do a demolition job on the cursed thing, my bet is we’d be putting a major dent in their plans. It’s in Warehouse Six.”

Curfew nodded. “Spires,” he began, gripping the arms of his chair so hard that his fingernails turned white, “I want you to take all available guards and destroy this machine. Do it quickly. Do it now. I’ll come along for good measure. Anything else that might help?”

“Possibly,” Obegarde said when Spires had hurried from the room. “The Lark has gone to Plunge.”

“Plunge? But that’s miles away. Have you any idea why?”

“No, but she had a thief steal some lizards from a forest up north, and then the gnome killed him. Now her minions have them; as far as I can make out, they’re en route to rendezvous with her.”

“In Plunge?”

“Yes. Whatever she’s planning, I’m guessing these lizards are an integral part of it.”

At that moment, Spires returned. He stood in the corridor, fully armored and gasping for air.

“The men are ready, Excellency,” he said.

H
AVING SHINNED UP A
sheer brick wall in the nave of the cathedral, Jimmy Quickstint vaulted over the edge of a balcony and landed, on all fours, in the dark antechamber beyond.

“Bugger this,” he spat at the barrowbird who flew over the balcony to land beside him. “He could be anywhere.”

“Just stay alert, boy. I’ll keep watch for you.”

Jimmy squinted into the gloomy shadows cast by the cathedral’s innards. He slipped over to crouch beside a heavy iron pipe that ran from floor to ceiling, and put an ear to the outer shell.

“What’re you doing, boy?”

“Shhh! It’s an old thief trick.”

“You were a thief?”

“Be quiet!”

Jimmy strained to listen; somewhere far off in the gargantuan sanctuary, he heard the unmistakable click of a door closing.

“Well,” squawked the barrowbird. “Getting anything?”

“Mmm … I think he’s downstairs.”

“Straight up? How can you tell?”

Jimmy tapped the pipe indicatively and raised an eyebrow. “A door closed.”

“Ah. How do you know it was him, though?” asked the barrowbird. “There must be folk working here, place this size: bishops, canon, cardinals, and the like.”

“Cathedral’s abandoned,” Jimmy snapped. “Didn’t you see the chain on the gates? No one comes here now, not since the Yowlers outlawed other religions. The grounds ’re still used for burials, but that’s about it.”

The catacombs beneath Dullitch Cathedral were legendary.

Stretching for half a mile in every direction, they linked up with the city’s equally legendary sewer system. Rumor suggested that black elves wandered the subterranean waterways, but no one had survived long enough to prove it.

Jimmy, with the barrowbird perched jauntily on his shoulder, squinted ahead. The passageway he’d happened upon culminated in a T-junction, and the figure lingering there was definitely not a black elf. Jimmy couldn’t be sure, but he hoped it was the rogue Yowler priest.

“Hey, you! Stop in the name of, er—”

“Jort,” said the barrowbird.

“Yes! Stop in the name of Jort!”

The figure at the end of the tunnel paused, shook a fist in Jimmy’s direction, and disappeared left.

“Who’s Jort?” said the gravedigger, hurrying after him.

“Powerful god.”

“Really? I’ve never heard of him.”

“No, well, I can’t say I’m totally shocked. He doesn’t get much publicity in these parts.”

Jimmy nodded. “Who does?”

They pursued Lopsalm to the end of the tunnel, where a door gaped open to reveal an ancient and precipitously steep staircase. Footsteps were just barely audible some six or seven flights up.

“Where d’you reckon they go?” asked the barrowbird.

Jimmy shrugged. “A fair way, I imagine. Judging from the echo, they might even lead to the cathedral roof.”

“Incredible! The architect who built this place must’ve been out of his bloody mind.”

“Or religious,” Jimmy added. “In practice, it seems to amount to the same thing.”

The stairs went on and on. Jimmy counted more than four hundred before they ran out on him. There was an old wooden trapdoor in the ceiling, and nowhere else to go.

He took a second to sniff the air and cautiously lifted the door. A blanket of rain splattered on his face.

Thunder rumbled overhead.

The barrowbird took off.

Jimmy padded out onto the flat expanse of the roof. Unfortunately, before Jimmy could begin the hunt, Lopsalm dropped from a gargoyle’s outstretched wing and clubbed him on the back of the neck with a candlestick.

Lopsalm stepped forward, his lips curled in a terrible smile.

He reached down and snatched hold of Jimmy’s leg. Then he dragged the gravedigger into the center of the cathedral roof and, after observing his handiwork for a few minutes, produced a minibow from the depths of his robe.

“Your death will be … interesting,” he muttered. “Certainly not fast, but enjoyable nevertheless.

Jimmy was beginning to come round, his vision clearing to reveal the demonic features of Lopsalm, and beyond, a tiny black speck descending from the sky at an alarming rate. The priest noticed Jimmy’s wandering gaze.

Lopsalm stepped back and squinted up at the sky, mere seconds before the barrowbird came into view. He raised the minibow and fired. The arrow arced into the air, striking the bird with such force that it flew backward a few feet before it began to plummet.

But the bird’s diversion had bought Jimmy a few valuable seconds. The gravedigger catapulted himself to his feet, kicked the bow from Lopsalm’s grasp, and shoved the priest backward, hard.

Lopsalm faltered and tried to right himself, but it was too late. Jimmy lashed out with a fist and sent the Yowler priest hurtling dangerously close to the edge of the cathedral roof. Lopsalm managed to snatch at a protruding slate and save himself, but as he struggled to regain his footing, the momentum of his impromptu flight overtook him.

Jimmy saw his chance.

He leaped, landing with a well-placed boot in the middle of Lopsalm’s chest.

The collision was fast and furious. Lopsalm gasped and toppled backward, flapping his arms furiously in a last-ditch attempt to save himself.

A scream erupted.

And Lopsalm fell.

For a moment, there was silence.

Jimmy Quickstint, hunkered down on all fours and bleeding at the mouth, peered out over the edge of the roof. Through a blanket of fine rain, he glimpsed something very messy spread out on the steps below. The tally of Yowler followers in Dullitch, he reflected, had just gone down by one.

Jimmy sighed, and his heart slowed. He stared down dispassionately at the corpse, before the strangled cries of the barrowbird shook him from his reverie. He struggled to attain a standing position, and made his way over the damp tiles to where the bird lay squawking weakly, the arrow still protruding from its puffy breast.

“
Awwk
!”

“Be quiet. Let me pull it out.”

“It’s no good, mate. I’m a goner.”

“Nonsense. One sharp tug and—”

“I’m telling you, boy, it’s fatal. I’ve had it.”

“Where did you get such a negative attitude?”

“No joke. I’m—I’m—I’m—”

There was a sudden, pulse-stopping pause. Then a flash of lightning arced from the sky and struck the barrowbird. Surrounded by a shimmering wave of electric energy, it squawked, shuddered, and began to change shape.

Jimmy looked on, openmouthed, as the distortion took on the recognizable form of a small and very wiry old man. He was wearing a tattered piece of cloth stretched (rather to its limits) into a sort of diaper arrangement.

Thunder rumbled. Erratic lightning flashed again, even more brilliantly than before, and the skies darkened.

“What the bloody hell is this?” shouted Jimmy. “Who are you, some kind of metamorphic wizard?”

“No, mate,” said the old man, his breath beginning to fail. “Never gone much on wizardry, myself.”

“Necromancer?”

“N-no.”

“Sorcerer?”

“N-n-no.”

“A god then, I’m guessing.”

The old man shrugged. “No, th-though I was cursed by the disciples of a particularly watchful one.

Jimmy’s eyes narrowed. “So you’re just a mortal man who annoyed a god?”

“Ha! Y-y-you g-got it.”

“Are you going to die?”

“Y-yes, but not before you promise me something.”

Jimmy’s concerned expression drained away; it was replaced by an apprehensive twitch. “It doesn’t involve another roof, does it? I’m actually pretty terrified of heights.”

“L-L-Lopsalm’s n-not alone. M-make sure you g-g-get the others. T-t-terrible doooom.”

“What? How
can
I? I don’t even know who the others are, damn it! These are the Yowlers we’re talking about. There might be hundreds of them!”

“P-p-p-promise.”

“No …”

“P-p-p-p-promise.”

“No!”

“P-p-p-p-p-promise.”

“NO!”

“P-p-p …”

“All right, I promise!! But I can’t—”

The old man died.

“Damn you!” Jimmy screamed. “Now I’ve made a promise I can’t bloody keep. You crafty, vindictive, decrepit old … corpse!”

As if in reply, the skies opened up and Jimmy was pelted with hailstones. Throwing his arms up over his head, he made a valiant turn against the rain and out over the wide, statue-covered roof. With any luck he’d be able to get to the trapdoor before the gods stoned him to death. He certainly wouldn’t be taking the shortcut down.

T
HE FRENZIED ACTIVITY OF
the city guard had brought most of the inhabitants of the harbor district out into the streets.

Viscount Curfew, who’d decided to personally oversee the destruction of the machine in Warehouse Six, stood at the rear of the demolition team, shouting orders and offering the occasional boon of encouragement when a particularly big chunk crashed to the ground. The team, who’d obviously been informed of the machine’s imminent threat to the city, were hacking away at its various extremities like men possessed, while an ogre-led brute force (employed at the very last minute by an inspired guard sergeant) made light work of the many bits the main team couldn’t handle. Giant, angled mirrors came crashing to the floor, while various tubular wooden arms containing even more reflective barriers were ripped off and soundly stamped into dust. Curfew prayed to the gods of justice that those responsible surfaced quickly.

Obegarde and Spires mingled among the growing assembly of late-night harbor workers, assuring them that there was nothing to worry about, and urging them to return to their business.

“It’s a routine inspection,” Spires explained to one bystander, while Obegarde, bluffing with greater success, offered another the explanation that “His lordship got a letter of complaint from the Harbor Master; we don’t know who owns the thing, but it’s taking up far too much room.”